There’s an awful lot of questions to ask after the Clippers flopped in Cleveland for the second straight year, but here were two things that stuck out most to me:
Where’s the D?: The Cavaliers, even without rookie star Kyrie Irving, represent a weird defensive matchup for the Clippers. Ramon Sessions (24 points, 9-for-16) did a great job penetrating and scoring, and Antawn Jamison (27 points, 10-for-18) might as well be Blake Griffin’s Kryptonite with his length and jump-shooting ability. On no planet should Paul and Griffin get outscored by Sessions and Jamison, but that happened tonight. As a team the Cavs shot over 50 percent from the field. The Clippers have been able to secure wins by playing lackluster defense in the past, but playing on the road and not getting the usual offensive magic from Mo Williams left the team too vulnerable. If the offense isn’t clicking, the Clippers have to find other ways to win. They couldn’t tonight.
Kenyon Martin: There’s an awful lot of negative takeaways from this game, but let’s focus on one of the positives. In his first game with the Clippers, Martin provided some solid production as a weakside defender and rim protector by altering a few shots and picking up two blocks. Offensively, at least when he’s on the floor with Reggie Evans like he was tonight, Martin is going to have to knock down a few of those jumpers to keep the defense honest. Del Negro will have to get creative offensively (gulp) when Martin plays with Evans or Jordan, but the defensive returns were nice to see.The fact that he’s clearly embraced his role as Blake Griffin protector by shoving Samardo Samuels and picking up a T was nice to see as well. He’ll be a good fit.
4 Responses
Clippers just played sloppy and thought they could get away with the win. They need to tighten the screws every game so they can win. Poor excution and poor defense. Clipper need to bring there A game even if it is a weaker team so they don’t get dissapointing loses like this one. Now they have to play the white hot 76ers and shut them down to win
Posted on February 8th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
I liked Martin’s energy. He played well even though he shot poorly.
As a team, we need to play from ahead. It’s that simple. This game is too winable to let guys that have no business getting hot, get hot.
Paul shot a very poor percentage and so did Mo. On a night where we got now high percentage from DeAndre, ZERO SHOTS. That lack of shooting hurts even more.
Defensively we got real stingy there for a while when we made our comeback but I would have liked to see some of that energy in the first quarter. We would have killed their confidence and been up 12 – 15.
Posted on February 8th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Blake Griffin’s young rising star, why does he need to throw all the cheap shots and foul out at the end of the game when he’s needed?
Tim Reply:
February 9th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Blake is the bull in the china shop. You love him if you own the bull, you hate him if you are the china shop. The bully might not always do things you like, but you’d rather have him on your team, than be the one getting bullied. Make no apologys for Blake, because he’s not going to change his style of play. It is what it is, like it or leave it. To be a dominant power forward, you have to dominate, and sometimes that can get ugly. Karl Malone was all elbows, and if you caught one, then thats what happens. A guard, or small forward can play a clean game, and dominate, but it gets rough in amoungst the trees, so sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. PF = NT, or OG, in the trenches. No room for softies.
Posted on February 9th, 2012 at 11:01 am
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